The Lake Loop

I rode the lake loop today.  It's a great ride, and it's got some significance for me - my first attempt at it was my introduction to Tyler.  It was with a Tuesday night group ride a couple years ago that was advertised at 15-18 MPH but the leader held 20 MPH rolling out of town.  I hung for a couple miles but I knew I was in trouble, and that became clear to everyone on our first hill - about three miles into the ride.  Tyler - riding sweep as he so often does - hung back with me, sped ahead to give the leader crap for exceeding the advertised speed, then came back with me and chatted me up as we watched the rest of the riders speed away from us up the next hill.  At the top of that hill, Tyler sped forward again, caught the others, stopped them, and split the ride up into two groups: a fast group that continued around the lake and a slow one (me & Tyler)  that doddled northerly for a mile or two before turning south, returning to the north shore of the lake, and heading home.

My other significant memory was my first successful completion of the loop.  It was actually a modified lake loop for the 2007 Bob LeBow Bike Tour 35-mile route.  But it's not memorable simply for me having finished it; I'd just completed a 35-mile ride and I had zero excuses left for not bicycle commuting the 25 miles to work.  Roughly one third of my 2648 miles in 2008 were ridden directly to work and fully half were commuting (inculding to/from the bus).  With all that commuting, clearly that 2007 LeBow ride was the single most important factor in the growth of my cycling hobby.  A little off topic, I rode the 2008 LeBow metric century and again pushed my riding envelope.  That seventy-something-mile day (including my ride to the start/finish) remains my longest day to date.  After I made the turn from Riverside onto Orchard for the final leg of the ride, I was overcome with emotion at the prospect of actually finishing 100 kilometers - especially considering the rough go I had earlier into a big headwind on Map Rock Road.  I truly didn't think I was gonna be able to finish down there, but those last ten miles felt absolutely great - I was sailing past everyone as I bawled.  And hey I made that map too.

I'm sure that's plenty of reminiscence for most readers.  Get over it - this is my blog.  Besides, it's been a while since I indulged my long-story-telling side.  Anyway, today's ride was good.  I averaged 16.6 MPH over 31.5 miles, so my stamina isn't nearly as bad as I thought it was.  Lots of neat stuff to see - a red tailed hawk glided along above me for a while.  Presumably I came a little too close to the nest.  A family was playing with their bassett hound along the north shore of Lake Lowell.  Along the south side of the lake, appropriately, is Lake Shore Drive.  Everytime I ride that road, I think of the Dire Straits song, Telegraph Road - "He built a cabin and a winter store, and he plowed up the ground by the cold lake shore."  That's a great song - could be about Pocatello.  Mark Knopfler seems to like singing about the American West.

But the most interesting part of the ride was something that looked equally redneck and ghetto.  Ghedneck?  A super stretch limo made from a 1990s Mercury Sable.  What?!  Yeah.  Exactly.  Making it even worse was that the owners had glued a Mercedes Benz logo on the grill.  Wow.